6/11/10

Seriously. This is a great pop song that hits all the checkmarks you'd want in a great pop song, from cheesy video to vaguely yearning lyrics to chord changes to danceability. Don't knock any of them, cos the end package rocks.

Maybe it's because this neck of the woods doesn't get the full-on hype of the industry and its hanger-ons, but you actually listen to this song and you'll hear real musical ability. Enjoy.

So who is going to benefit from terrorist attacks on the union leaders of Frontino Gold Mines? Why was one of the workers' directors shot three times and narrowly escaped death this week? Would anyone care to ask Frank Giustra about the tactics being used to scare people who oppose his move into Colombia? There's some dirty business going on here, folks. Here's the report translated:

At 12:30pm on June 5th 201o in the municipality of Segovia, North-East Antioquia, Colombia, the union leader of Sintramienergética Segovia division and Health Secretary of the governing body John Jairo Zapata Marulanda was shot and injured by three bullets at the hands of hired assassins on a motorcycle.

John Jairo is 37 years old and has more than 15 years of service in the Frontino Gold Mines Company gold mines. He was taken from the crime scene to the Segovia hospital where his condition was stabilized and then flown to the city of Medellín where he underwent surgery.

It is necessary to remember that in the last few days, Mr. Serafino Iacono, a large shareholder of Medoro Resources (MRS.v), has referred to the Frontino workers as a small group made up of paramilitarists and guerrillas and he was going to take care of the case in conjunction with the government.

Last week, regional president Dairo Rua and all other members of the union directive of Frontino Gold Mines received death threats. Via e-mail, the directive was declared a military target due to its opposition of the sale of Frontino Gold Mines to Medoro Resources and were told they had 15 days to get out of the gold mining zone.

Ther multinational has offered a derisory sum for the company and its pension obligations. kepping in mind that the company belongs to the workforce and to the retired workers, in the face of which the union has stated its absolute non-agreement to the deal and the negotiations which are suspected to be overssen by wealthy members of society and the Uribe government.

Also threatened with death against themselves and family member are Marcos Gaviria Lujan and César Augusto Duque, president and vice-president respectively of the Association of Pensioners of Frontino Gold Mines, who were taken by air to the city of Medellín under strict security measures with their families. Continues here.

We're not going to make much direct reference to the World Cup Finals and the games but any Cup-related story might get told here. That'll be our site policy, however we do think a warning is in order for those in northern countries that do business with LatAm: If you find meetings suddenly cancelled or rearranged, telephones left unanswered, mails left un-replied and a general lack of will from your LatAm business partner or contact to be out there thrusting and making money from today until July 11th, please be patient and understanding. The effect of the World Cup on the whole continent (not just the countries competing, be clear) is something akin to high fever mixed with deep hypnotism.

Why is it featured so often? Because it's Dr. Copper, the bellweather commodity metals and the one that leads and doesn't follow. So the rebound these last four to five days has been welcome but we're still not breaking out of anything at the current $2.93/lb, so sez the squigglylines.

6/10/10

The world will get along just fine without this humble corner of cyberspace for a while. Your author has a day with his kids planned and they're getting full and undivided attention. IKN returns tomorrow morning.

6/9/10

This humble corner of cyberspace has, up to today, resisted the dozens of possible post themes related to the World Cup Finals. But today we crack and give in to temptation (hell, we're only two days away now, gotta say something about a sports tournament that will affect LatAm GDP in a bigtime manner).

Our story is from Paraguay and shows you just how lucky some people can be. Translated from this EFE wire:

The Vice-President of Paraguay, Federico Franco, is travelling to South Africa "to cheer on the team" thanks to a ticket that his wife won in a prize draw, the Paraguayan dignitary announced Tuesday.

"My wife won the draw to travel (to South Africa)" the VP told journalists when telling them he was flying to South Africa on Sautrday to support the national team.

The congresswoman Emilia Alfaro, wife of Franco, won the ticket for the South Africa World Cup 2010 in a draw run by a local company for its clients, according to local media.

To celebrate the Clintons' (both of 'em) arrival and hangout in Colombia, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC, the world's biggest union body) released its annual survey of world deaths due to trade union activity today. Here's how the numbers look in chart form.

There has been no improvement in the plight of trade unionists on the American continent, undoubtedly owing to the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for trade union rights violations. This is, in substance, the main conclusion that can be drawn from the "Americas" section of the International Trade Union Confederation’s 2010 report on trade union rights violations around the world. It is not surprising that this continent continues to be the most deadly for trade unionists, especially in Colombia, where 48 were killed this year alone.

The American continent has long been the scene of anti-union murders, chiefly in Colombia, Guatemala (16) and Honduras (12), together with abductions, death threats, attacks and even raids on trade unionists’ homes.

Whilst Latin America may have shown greater resistance to the financial turmoil than other parts of the world, the global financial and economic crises have had a profound impact on the region’s real economy. The ITUC annual survey explains that many governments, such as that of Costa Rica, have used the crisis as a pretext for further weakening trade union rights, adopting measures, for example, to increase labour flexibility.

In Colombia, the world’s most dangerous country for trade unionists (Colombia accounts for 60% of all the murders committed around the world on the grounds of trade union activities), the endemic climate of anti-unionism would appear to have become even more deeply rooted. In addition to the many reported murders, there are the cases that have not been registered, as well as the attempted murders, disappearances and death threats. Violence against women is also on the rise: five of the 48 trade unionists assassinated were women. The facts established in the ITUC report point clearly to the fact that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these crimes erases any hope of eradicating the anti-union climate in Colombia continues here.

This must be why Mish Shedlock extols the virtues of Colombia. The full ITUC report or the regional sections thereof can be downloaded here.

A few days ago I got to see a new report written by the guys over at Metal Augmentor. I thought it was really good work and so floated the idea back to them that they put a version in a PDF file and then we stick the report up here on IKN, offering it as a free download to anyone and everyone. So today that's exactly what is happening.

Click here to download your free report. It's an excellent comparative analysis of nine silver producers, with plenty of charts, lots of smart commentary and recommendations for investors too (and fwiw, Fortuna Silver (FVI.to) scores well compared to peers). I'll leave you with the opening blurb from the note, as it explains more about the authors too.

The Metal Augmentor is an investment research service located at www.metalaugmentor.com. We specialize in covering gold, silver and other metals and mining stocks from primarily a fundamental perspective along with some technical analysis as well as market timing. We have built a robust peer valuation database for exploration stage, development stage, and production stage gold, silver, base metal, and “energy metal” companies. This report focuses on the universe of mid-tier silver producers, loosely defined as companies that produce on the order of 3 to 25 million ounces of silver per year, that generate the majority of their revenue from silver production, and that are generally viewed by investors as silver mining companies.

PS: I'd like to point out nice and clearly that IKN or this author or anyone connected does not receive any sort of direct benefit (cash, commish, etc etc) from passing this on to you (and we're nothing at all to do with metal augmentor, either). The only benefit IKN gets is being able to pass on a great analysis to its readership at no cost, so hopefully you'll remember me in a happy sunny way afterwards.

One of the morning jobs (usually while sipping a decent coffee) is to check on the pre-open news releases as they come off the wires. Here are a few that caught this humble scribe's eye today:

Fronteer (FRG) (51% owner and operator) and AuEx Ventures (XAU.to) (49% owner) nail another great drill return from Long Canyon. The headline grabbing 16.4g/t gold over 21.2m is also on an outstep, making it even more sexy. Expect love for both stocks on this, esp XAU.to which has underperformed compared to FRG these last few days.

Sabina Gold & Silver (SBB.to)return more great numbers from its new Llama Lake property. A certain US resident bottom-feeding chartist I could mention isn't going to get his stink bid filled :-)

Hathor (HAT.v) came out with its NR after the bell yesterday and the stock was halted in the afternoon due to it. The headline number of 7.5m at 43.64% U308 is an infill, but hells bells it's still a mind-popping intersect. Do the math, folks. With U308 trading at U$40.75 per pound (and plenty higher on long term contracts, but we'll just run with the public number) every metric tonne of that intersect is worth U$39,205......like wowsers. It's the equivalent of 1kg/t gold intersects (using U$1,200/oz Au).

Here's the hourly, that shows the relief rally going on today pretty clearly. The talk-up is on Chinese export strength.

Meanwhile, here's the same metal on a daily candle basis, which shows that although welcome enough, copper has to bust through some technical resistance before we can start breaking out the champagne....gotta love TA and how it's never ever wrong.

Note to subscribers: All the views expressed in IKN57 last Sunday still stand and plans haven't changed one iota.

6/8/10

As reported by Maladjusted this morning, there's been a big hoo-hah down this way thanks to an interview given by Chile's ambassador to Argentina in which he said that the Pinochet years weren't that big a deal. Here's the exact quote as IKN shamelessly lifts SM's good translation:

"The majority of Chile didn't feel the impact of the dictatorship. On the contrary, they were relieved. Because before you couldn't buy anything imported, you had to pay for what was produced in Chile--expensive and bad. Over night, you started to find out what was missing. The people won. Then the streets were cleaned and people started to have jobs."

For details of how dumbass this crusty was when opening his mouth, check out the Maladjusted post.

So the news out of Chile a few minutes ago is that ambassador Otero (for it is he above) has "had his resignation accepted" (i.e. Seb Piñera has booted his ass outta town) even after he gave it the full apology. This is good. I'm actually beginning to like this Piñera dude, much to my own surprise.

Just how stupid are the people running Great Panther Silver (GPR.to)? Here's how stupid. Today I received this in the mail from A Reader:

Great Panther Silver (TSX: GPR) just hit $0.83 and I believe this is the beginning of a huge breakout!

GPR earned $1.3 million in net income in just the 1Q of 2010! GPR plans to increase silver production by 20% each year with production in 2012 of 3.8 million Ag eq oz and a cash cost of only $4 per ounce!

Silver prices are up another $0.208 today to $18.37 per ounce and gold just hit a new all time high! Silver is still far from its all time high due to JP Morgan's short selling and manipulation, but I believe a huge short squeeze in silver is coming very soon!

GPR could become one of our biggest winners in history! It's my number one pick for 2010!

That's what's called an internet pump job, people. But rather than take apart the argument let's kill the freakin' messenger, because for those that don't know Lebed Biz is run by Jonathan Lebed, an internet scamster of the worst kind. To give you an example, at the tender age of 15 he was canned by the SEC for running internet scam pump'n'dump schemes and he's been doing this crap ever since. In the words of the SEC citation on this crudball:

1. Introduction

On eleven separate occasions between August 23, 1999 and February 4, 2000, Lebed engaged in a scheme on the Internet in which he purchased large blocks of thinly traded microcap stocks and, within hours of making such purchases, sent numerous false and/or misleading messages, or "spam," over the Internet touting the stocks he had just purchased. Lebed then sold all of these shares, usually within 24 hours, profiting from the increased price his messages had caused. During the course of the scheme, Lebed realized a total net profit of $272,826

And here's a representative transaction highlighted by the SEC as typical of this scumbag's style:

A representative example of Lebed's trading activity is his trading in the stock of Man Sang Holdings, Inc. (ticker symbol "MSHI"). On January 5, 2000, Lebed purchased 18,000 shares of MSHI at prices ranging from $1.375 to $2.00 per share. The trading volume on December 30, 1999 was 100 shares with a closing price of $1.125 per share. On January 5, 2000, the volume was 60,700 shares at a closing price of $1.8125. At 11:46 p.m. on January 5, 2000, Lebed posted messages on Yahoo!Finance message boards claiming that MSHI was "the most undervalued stock in history" and would be trading at more than $20 per share "very soon." On January 6, 2000, in response to the messages posted by Lebed, the volume of trading skyrocketed to 1,074,900 shares at a high of $4.6875 per share. On that date, Lebed sold all 18,000 shares of MSHI at prices ranging from $3.8125 to $4.00 per share. His net profit was $34,959. MSHI issued no press releases and there was no news in the marketplace during this time period to account for the rise in price and volume.

And this is the kind of person the GPR.to lines up to promote its company with. As it happens I'm sure GPR.to isn't doing anything illegal, but as GPR has already paid scumball Lebed $20,000 to promote its name I do think that GPR.to is clearly run by stupid people with no common sense whatsoever and if their promotional tactics are taken as example, the board obviously has no idea about how to do things properly.

The time was yesterday, the place was this author's inbox and the occasion was a mail to answer a reader's question on the current buzz about the Peruvian presidential elections next year. At the moment the contenders are jockeying for position and the race is starting to heat up, so here's the impressions so far as written in reply (edited very slightly to protect the innocent)

The buzz is that it's a three pronged race: Luis Castañeda, Keiko Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo. Keiko is cacking herself cos she thinks Toledo is going to take her place in the run-off (ottonote;the Peru system is very similar to Colombia's, where a 2nd round run-off happens between the top two if no candidate gets 50% +1 vote). Her best line so far is "I am not the continuation of Fujimorista policies" which is worthy of Kafka himself and the type of thing that can only be taken seriously on this most wonderful of continents.

Castañeda is unknown outside of Lima. Outside of Lima is where round one is won or lost. He has zero charisma and isn't cut from the right cloth to be a LatAm prez. If he squeaks it (it's possible) he'd be a direct continuation of current policy, with the pzazz of Fernando de la Rua (ottonote: the ex-Prez of Argentina who made a virtue out of being boring in his election campaign).

Toledo has every chance of winning it, I think. He's the only one that's 'presidenciable'. Also, look at the history books and check how many times Peru has voted in a president twice. There's a national trait here.

Humala is now a side issue. Keiko takes too much of the popular (-ist) vote away from him. I'm glad, as although my left of centre politics should make me sympathetic to him, the guy is a poor excuse for a leader. The wrong man at the right time.

Keiko: Please, no. Please.

In a Keiko vs Castañeda 2nd round, Luis wins (probably)

In a Castañeda vs Choledo 2nd round, it'll be close but i think Toledo gets it

In a Keiko Toledo 2nd round, Toledo wins. Take that to the bank.

My $5 is on Choledo (ottonote; one of the many nicknames for Toledo). He'll probably wait on announcing a run until Aug/Sept and then use the momentum to his advantage.

A classic question for sector investors is whether to hold gold or gold miners, as the theory usually stuffed down your throat by experts (word used very loosely) is that a gold miner will offer you leverage to the metal and compound your profits. So let's see.

We compare gold using its ETF (GLD) as the proxy, then some of the biggest goldminer names out there in Barrick (ABX), Newmont (NEM), Gold Fields (GFI), Goldcorp (GG), Buenaventura (BVN) and Agnico-Eagle (AEM).

This chart shows us how things have progressed in 2010 to date:

click to enlarge

So far this year, GLD has performed better than all the gold miners except NEM

Here's a little longer time span, showing the 12 month period:

click to enlarge

So if we take 12 months as our benchmark, GLD has performed better than all the miners except BVN.

Now a step further back, as we consider a longer five year period.

click to enlarge

This time GLD's 185% upside performance is trumped by three of the miners (AEM, BVN and GG), but really only AEM has put significant ground between it and its metal.

Overall, it seems to me that unless you were smart/lucky enough to have picked AEM out the pack a few years ago, holding gold is the better call and screw conventional wisdom. DYODD, dude.

This is a post that should have been written a long time ago, so today's the day things get put right. Joshua Frens-String runs a blerg called 'Hemispheric Brief', and every day it puts out a daily digest post of events and newsworthy items in a single compilation post. His daily post always has plenty of useful links and good, reasoned commentary on the issues.

It's a great resource and I'm putting it on my RSS today (after being reminded of the site's existence by being linked here this morning, thanks Joshua). If you want a smart, easy to read, pan-LatAm resource that will keep you up with the news in the English language it's a top choice. Also, as from today you'll find a direct link on the IKN blogroll, over there on the right.

The C.A.M.E. (Argentine Chamber of Medium-Sized Businesses) people over in the non-serious country came out with their measurement of monthly retail sales this morning and the number off the wires caught this humble scribe's eye. "Hmm. +4.6% for May 2010, not bad" was the thought, so off we scuttled to the CAME website for more and as this Spanish language table shows, the pick-up in sales was pretty much across the board.

This is good. What's not so good is the wider context of the retail scene in the non-serious country, as this table I stuck together shows (after checking out the back data):

The most recent seven months of YoY retail increases is, of course, going in the right direction. But the slump has been very heavy in the preceding two years and sales now are still under 2007 numbers in absolute terms (not to mention dollar terms, as the inflation levels must be causing havoc if you use an outside measurement).

So Argentina is making some progress to recovery, but it's still pretty fragile stuff.

The ladyClinton is today at the OAS conference in Lima, where she'll stick up for her bff Lobo, try to get his country back in the club and neatly ignore all the human rights abuses that have been going on recently (what number are we up to now? I think it's 10 reporters murdered in Honduras since he took over). So once she's done listening to the commie creeps and getting the Honduras veto in her face once again, she'll split for Ecuador where Studmuffin will make eyes at her, then off to Colombia for time with both mockus and Santos as well as fond farewells to the NastyBrutishShort one.

Meanwhile, the gentleman Clinton is in Argentina today raising funds for the Clinton coffers by giving one of those keynote speeches and then one of those clubby-type intimate gatherings he does for serious moolah in a hotel in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires. We'd expect him to ...ahem....enjoy the varied nightlife of BsAs in the same style as last time he hit town too. That was in June last year when he checked out Cocodrilo, usually named as a 'gentleman's nightclub' by the press but in fact (and folks, you're reading an eyewitness to the place who went in his bachelor days) it's a whorehouse. On his last visit, Clinton spend the evening there and was entertained by a $1,000 pole dancer (she gets that price for being a minor celebrity, as she was once an Argy Big Brother contender) who told the yellow rags afterwards that Slick Willie "wanted more".

So there you go; Hillary in Lima and Bill in Buenos Aires. Which one is the more newsworthy? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

UPDATE: On this link find a bunch of 16 photos from last night's reception held for Bill's sake in BsAs. It's a measure of the pulling power of the Clinton dude that this photo exists..........as the guy with Bill is Gerardo Werthein, head of the very powerful 'W' Group (the Werthein family biz, amongst other things big part owner of Telecom Argentina) and a notoriously camera shy person (he has this kidnapping paranoia, apparently). Also seen in other photos are his father and brother posing with Bill, plenty of local politico bigwigs and the stock standard shots of Bill gawking at women's breasts. Go check it out.

Over at Naked Capitalism today, Yves Smith partially reviewed 'Once in Golconda' by John Brooks, one of the better books on the stock market ever written (I'm glad to say I had the pleasure a few moons ago...also recommended by the same author is 'The Go-Go Years') that chronicles the downfall of once high-flying banker Richard Whitney.

The book excerpt chosen by Smith was a good one and reminded me of many stocks recently followed, especially this one (as it's traded in the USA and not Canada, following the established Wall St rhythms more faithfully).

But really, that's just one of many that could fit nicely so pick your own fave. Here's the bit of the book excerpt that matters, a good chunk worth chewing over on a Sunday morning.

"......the pool manager, as broker, would begin buying and selling shares of the stock at frequent intervals, in no apparent pattern. Often he would buy and sell it back and forth among the members of the pool…..these essentially spurious transactions, accomplished with the sympathetic help of the specialist, would be so weighted that the price of the stock would begin to rise slightly. In speculators’ jargon, it would be “active and higher”…Thus the stock would be called to the public’s attention, and the notion of making a quick profit in it planted in the public’s mind. The eager tape-watchers would gradually begin to buy – cautiously and tentatively at first, then as the activity continued to increase and the price to rise, more and more boldly. Now the pool manager’s operations would become more delicate. On some days he would abruptly switch to the selling side, simply to create confusion; then just when the public was about to decide the picnic was over, he would come back in with a torrent of buying that would sweep all along with him. Finally, in a skillfully conducted manipulation, the thing would become self-sustaining; the public would in effect take the operation over, and in a frenzy of buying at higher and higher prices would push the stock on up and up with no help from the pool manager at all. That was the moment of the final phase….often spoken of indelicately as “pulling the plug.” With a mousiness in sharp contrast to the elaborate fanfare with which he had begun his buying, the pool manager would begin feeding stock back into the market. The price would respond by turning downward, gradually at first, then more rapidly as the pool manager’s trickle of sales mounted to a flood; and before the public could collect its senses, the retreat would have become a rout, the pool would have unloaded its entire bundle profitably, and the public would be left holding the suddenly deflated stock.."

"A simple Google search of “oil spill” turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. “Learn more about how BP is helping,” the link’s tagline reads.

A spokesman for the company confirmed to ABC News that it had, in fact, bought these search terms to make information on the spill more accessible to the public.

“We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer,” BP spokesman Toby Odone told ABC News."

Total Pageviews

The information and opinions contained within this site reflect the personal views of Inca Kola News and therefore all material within should not be construed as accurate or reliable or be utilized as advice for investment or business purposes. Independent due diligence and discussions with ones own investment and business advisors is strongly recommended. Accordingly, nothing on this site should be construed as offering a guarantee of the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein, as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security or as an endorsement of any product or service. All opinions and estimates included on this site are subject to change without notice. All content may be reproduced under fair use doctrine providing proper credit and a return link is made to this https://www.liquidtintz.com/ site.